Originally Posted by bkrueger
. They were always better, when using somebody else's existing engine (and in this case I mean engine in a very general sense including game mechanics etc. - so it might be more clear to say: they were always best, when they made a sequel to somebody else's game).

Engine and game mechanics are two different things altogether. Again, if your engine is versatile enough you can graft all kinds of different game mechanics on it, and it certainly does look like the Onyx Engine was created with that in mind (ie: Aliens Crucible was basically aiming at ME-ish gameplay mechanics). Theorically there is nothing preventing an Onyx game to use the same gameplay mechanics as NWN2 for instance.

The only thing DSIII proved without a doubt is that they got their most stable and bug free release when creating a game with their own engine rather than relying on other companies' tech - and I don't think it's a coincidence.